"it's your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you." rumi

red letter Christians

Just another traveler on life’s highway hanging out in the slow lane. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. Beyond the horizon is rest calling my name. Green pastures, still waters, my cup is overflowing.

I probably would not write about faith and recovery if I did not have an unyielding, nagging directive to dispute the abounding, fear-filled theology which controlled my life for many of my early, formative years. It is my sense that many others also suffered and continue to suffer an “ism” of hell fires and damnation. It is for them that I return to the memories of pain caused by delusional theology in order to propose another way, the Way proclaimed by Jesus, our Christ. I am the way, the truth, the life seems to be lost on a religion more concerned with retribution, payback and profit than restoring life abundantly to the world’s lost and dying. Mega churches, millionaire televangelists, a gospel of affluence are obviously missing the mark set by Jesus to minister to the poor and downtrodden, to seek heaven at the bottom of the social ladder rather than in the far reaches of the universe.

In the book of Mark, a man comes running to Jesus asking what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers that one must live by the commandments. To which the man said he had followed them all. Then,

“One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross and follow me.” (1)

The man went away sad. We don’t know if he sold his possessions or if he cherished them more than a relationship with God. Soul sickness, however, does not discriminate between rich and poor. Selfishness and avarice are not limited to wealth and power.

Fortunately, through the recovery rooms of AA and the loving compassion of fellow trekkers, a restoration of soul for me was possible. The first step in this restoration was grasping the concept of “God as I understand God.” It is a foundational tenet of AA’s recovery program which has enabled millions of doubters like myself to find mental and spiritual health in a sea of unhealthy religious dogma.

God hates me, and God wants to burn me in hell’s fires. Imagine living with those thoughts for the first 33 years of your life? I tried to drink myself to death thinking I could drown with alcohol those haunting visions. I tried to wear the atheist armor and the agnostic unbelief to no avail. God still despised me and was waiting for me to commit the ultimate sin that would seal my fate in hell. In truth, during the years of alcoholism, I was already serving my sentence in his realm of fire and brimstone.

I don’t go there today because the God of my understanding does not take me there. Together we find green pastures and still waters. We are as One enjoying peace, solace, contentment, and treasures of the soul. It seems silly to me today that anyone who is seeking would choose a vengeful, wrathful, hateful old man as their God.

From Richard Rohr @ Center for Action and Contemplation:

In authoritarian and patriarchal cultures, most people were fully programmed to think this way” (the life of Jesus as a ransom to an angry, demanding God) – “working to appease an authority figure who was angry, punitive, and even violent in ‘his’ actions. Many people still operate this way, especially if they had an angry, demanding, or abusive parent. People respond to this kind of God, as sick as it is, because it fits their own story line.” (2)

Just another traveler on life’s highway hanging out in the slow lane. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. Beyond the horizon is rest calling my name. Green pastures, still waters, my cup is overflowing.

One of my daily reads is RED LETTER CHRISTIANS. It is a ministry which I use to lead my desire for simplicity in my faith walk. You may have a red letter KJV Bible as I do. Mine was presented to me on the occasion of confirmation at age 13 into the Lutheran Church. Over the years I felt a need to add a Scofield, a Comparative Study Bible which presents 4 translations side-by-side, and an American Standard Bible. I also have a translation of the Torah and a Concordance. Additionally, my book shelves overflow with commentaries and theological opinions.

I am not trying to impress you with my collection of books. I am letting you know that I am the ultimate doubter. I am the apostle Thomas in the Jesus story. “Let me see your hands with the nail holes and the scars on your head from the crown of thorns. Prove to me through the many books which I have read that you are real, that you are indeed a Lord and Master.”

And nothing happened. I learned an abundance of information about Israel, about Jerusalem, about the apostles who followed Jesus, about life under the Jewish religious hierarchy, about the oppression of the common people. But, I sadly realized that somehow I was not getting the message. And why was that?

I began to understand through engaging with the community of ‘red letter Christians’, those followers who find their truth in the red letters of the Bible, the words which are attributed to Jesus, the Christ, the union of man and God. The words, the teachings, the parables, the healings popped off the printed page and became real when I saw them as a guide to living rather than a God 101 course. When I read those red letters as a call to action rather than a statement of belief, my faith can be transactional rather than static.

I believe Jesus spoke those red letter words in his ministry, but it doesn’t matter if he did not. I believe he walked the earth as a common peasant, that he had healing powers, that he performed miracles, that he died on a cross. But it does not matter if he did not because I do not worship Jesus, I merely aspire in my everyday life to be more like the man portrayed in my Bible. I accept those red letters presented to doubters like me as proof that you and I can hope to live life abundantly even when persecuted, even when destitute, even when crucified for being who we are.

Many of you, like me, grew up in churches with spectacular stained glass windows, with a crucifix in the sanctuary and paintings depicting Biblical stories. Some of us mistakenly were taught to worship those icons and images. The heavens were filled with angels and a wrathful God holding lightning bolts in his hand. We recited the Creeds as statements of belief. But nowhere in those creeds does the humanity of Jesus take precedence. The love, compassion, forgiveness are forgotten. In the Apostles’ Creed Jesus is taken from “born of the Virgin Mary” to persecution under Pontius Pilate to crucifixion on the cross, to death.

Did Jesus not live a life in his 32-34 years walking the earth between “born of the Virgin Mary” to “died and was buried”? That was the missing link in my years playing the role of doubting Thomas. The red letters tell me about the man who ministered to the poor, healed the broken, forgave the sinner, and also lived his life abundantly. He did not shy away from a wedding with flowing wine or a good time with friends or supper with society’s disenfranchised.

That’s the Jesus to whom I can relate, the one I want my life to emulate.